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The leading idea of Christianity investigated, in a series of discourses
The leading idea of Christianity investigated in a series of discourses Author:Thomas Griffith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: is within my heart." And how far soever, therefore, we may also understand and judge of, and appreciate, his commandments, and approve them, and adopt them for o... more »ur own, (and without such approval and adoption, so far as it can go, there is no spiritual obedience,) yet our present understanding of them can never be the measure of their propriety, nor the limit of their authority; and therefore along with this enlightened acquiescence must there be ever joined submissive faith— faith which is the supplement to sense and understanding, and created reason ; and assures to us beforehand, previously to knowledge, those truths and facts which, by acting upon this assurance, we may ultimately reach to know. All true obedience, therefore, must be grounded on authority, and by constantly renewed submission to a higher Will than our's, must rise to constantly increasing insight into, and approval of, that Will. We must obey that we may know, and as we know we shall continue to obey. And therefore it is that the establishment of this kingdom of God has been entrusted to the Son Of God, who is the Representative ofhis Authority, and the Communicator of his Will. From the first, the unseen Father has acted, and has manifested himself, by and in his Word. By Him were all things made, and through Him was announced the law by which they should be regulated. And therefore to him has been committed the enforcement of that law, and the making it at last triumphant over alt the creatures of God. " For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." And to this end that Word was made flesh and came among us, as the long-expected King, demanding from all men submission to himself as to t...« less